Promises fade as COP30 offers little for food systems, sidesteps agricultural emissions

Agriculture sits at the centre of the climate challenge — feeding the world while producing nearly 30 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and bearing some of the worst climate impacts. But at 30th Conference of Parties (COP30) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held from November 10-21, 2025, meaningful reform of global food systems slipped through the cracks once again, even as industrial agribusiness interests grew more visible and negotiators entertained greenwashed “climate-smart” fixes.

When world leaders gathered in Belém, the heart of the Amazon and one of the world’s largest agricultural regions, expectations were high. Hosting the COP in such a location was seen as a political opportunity to confront the links between industrial agriculture and deforestation. Instead, it proved to be a missed opportunity.

Despite food and agriculture receiving more attention than at previous summits, COP30 ended with food mentioned just once in the negotiated text, narrowly framed as “climate-resilient food production” under the Global Goal on Adaptation. Language in the Mitigation Work Programme was also weakened, shifting from explicitly tackling the “drivers” of deforestation to the far vaguer “challenges”. There is still no acknowledgement that industrial agriculture drives nearly 90 per cent of global forest loss.

Food systems, which governments claimed were central to climate action, have been erased from these negotiations, said Raj Patel, professor at the University of Texas, and an expert with global thinktank International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food).

“[This is] Not by accident. Industrial agriculture holds extraordinary power over this process, and it shows. Two years ago, 160 countries signed a Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture with great ceremony. Today they cannot bring themselves to mention the word ‘food’ in the Muritão decision,” he said.

Let’s unpack what happened, and why it matters.

Sharm el-Sheikh joint work on agriculture and food security

This is the only formal agricultural negotiation track at the climate COPs, with discussions this year limited to three days in the first week. The four-year programme, established at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, is intended to hold mandated workshops, assess evidence and ultimately recommend how countries should address agriculture in the climate crisis.

But discussions on systemic, holistic approaches to climate action in food and agriculture stalled on November 13, when countries agreed to resume them in June next year in Bonn, Germany. The draft text that emerged reflects uneven terrain — bundling genuinely holistic pathways, such as agroecology and indigenous knowledge systems, with a raft of contentious additions including precision agriculture, artificial intelligence and carbon offsets, championed by some developed-country blocs.

While the former gained traction at the Bonn workshop in June, where several countries showed momentum behind agroecological practices, the latter are widely criticised as false solutions that entrench corporate control and the industrial model driving emissions and deforestation.

These are really not systemic and holistic approaches and shouldn’t be anywhere near the outcomes of that workshop, according to Teresa Anderson, Global Lead on Climate Justice for Action Aid International. “These are the approaches that are controlled and beloved by agribusiness corporations that really help them to claim that they are the solutions, when actually they are the problems and those approaches all serve to entrench corporate agribusiness control over the sector, the farmers and profits. In many cases, these approaches are pushing farmers out of work and off their land,” she said.

Much of this language was inserted at the last minute by the Environmental Integrity Group, a negotiating group for Mexico, Liechtenstein, Monaco, the Republic of Korea and Switzerland. This left no time for countries to debate or scrutinise the draft. The text will now be taken up at the Bonn workshop in June 2026.

“That is when we have a lot of work to do, to debunk these false solutions that were dropped into the text at the last minute with no chance to discuss,” added Anderson, who was tracking the negotiations in Belem.  

The next climate summit, COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, will be the final one for the joint work programme, and experts say progress in Belém was essential to set out a clear way forward.

A major sticking point is finance, or rather, the lack of it. Key issues such as expanding access to climate and adaptation finance for agriculture, and ensuring countries meaningfully integrate agriculture into their Nationally Determined Contributions and National Adaptation Plans, remain bracketed in an annex, signalling no consensus.

This impasse is likely to carry into the upcoming Bonn workshop, which will again grapple with Means of Implementation. Yet expectations remain tempered: Wealthier nations have shown little willingness to offer the public, grant-based support that frontline communities and smallholder farmers urgently need to cope with escalating climate impacts and scale real, ground-level solutions.

A recent analysis by Climate Focus for Family Farmers for Climate Action (FFCA) — an alliance representing 95 million small-scale producers across Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific — found that supporting small-scale farmers to adapt to climate change requires $443 billion annually, less than the $470 billion currently spent on harmful subsidies.

Anderson says the challenge is not only the quantity of finance but also its quality, with two-thirds of climate finance coming via private flows, mostly as loans.

The expectations coming to Belém were that governments would bring key takeaways and recommendations from the Bonn 2025 workshop to the forefront, said Clement Metivier with conservation organisation World Wide Fund for Nature-United Kingdom, who has been following the negotiations. “But the discussions were postponed to June next year. Governments ended up having less time for agriculture because there were other priorities,” he said. 

Some observers argue the absence of a concrete outcome should not be surprising. Anderson noted that the Sharm el-Sheikh joint work was never designed to deliver decisions this year — its structure requires a cycle of workshops, reports and consultations before recommendations can be finalised at COP31.

But others point out that even within this long timeline, the process has struggled to find direction. Since its creation in 2022, the programme has largely operated as an information-exchange platform, and “even that role is suffering from unclear mandates,” said Jehki Härkönen of Greenpeace Nordic.

Nearly three years in, progress has been mostly procedural rather than substantive.

AgriZone: Elephant in the room

Outside the formal negotiations, a dedicated area called the AgriZone, buzzed with terms such as “regenerative agriculture”, “green fertilisers” and “climate-smart agriculture”, promoted by major agribusiness, dairy and meat corporations. These sectors are among those driving deforestation in the Amazon through the expansion of soy, maize and cattle production for export. 

The AgriZone was just two kilometres from the main Blue Zone, which is the primary venue for official negotiations, the Leaders' Summit, and national pavilions. 

As with fossil fuel lobbyists, the influence of industrial agriculture stretched far beyond exhibition spaces. Observers told Down To Earth that scores of agribusiness representatives attended COP30, many embedded within government delegations, helping to shape national positions and lower ambition for genuine climate action.

Despite Brazil’s public rhetoric on forests, agribusiness remained the elephant in the room — its presence shaping the agenda and, observers say, sidelining meaningful action on the ground.

Ahead of the summit, Brazil had generated considerable momentum around deforestation. On the eve of COP30, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva spoke of a “pact for the life of forests, oceans, and humanity”, framing Belém as a moment of truth for global forest protection.

The Brazilian presidency unveiled two “Belém Roadmaps”: One to end deforestation and another to guide a fossil-fuel transition. But when it came to industrial agriculture — the biggest driver of Amazon forest loss — the summit fell short.

The final Mutirão text and Mitigation Work Programme acknowledged the local, regional and global drivers of deforestation. Yet critics argue that the real political will to tackle agricultural expansion was missing. As Härkönen put it, “the link is there but not strong. One reason must be that big agricultural corporations are doing all they can to keep food production out of the scope.”

Action Agenda: Progress or PR?

Sustainable agriculture and resilient food systems featured prominently in the COP30 Action Agenda, with non-state actors promoting initiatives to support smallholder farmers and build equitable food systems. These included FFCA, Agroecology Learning Alliances and the Belém Declaration on Hunger, Poverty and Human-Centred Climate Action, which highlighted the role of small-scale producers.

The Global Methane Pledge — adopted by 159 countries and the European Union — also aims to cut global methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030, relative to 2020 levels.

However, the latest Global Methane Status Report, launched at COP30 by the UN Environment Programme and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, warned that the current pace of action is insufficient to meet that goal.

While the initiatives showcased under the Action Agenda highlight innovative pathways, its voluntary nature limits impact. Intended to complement formal negotiations by showcasing leadership and success stories, the space is increasingly seen as problematic because it provides cover for polluting corporations to avoid real regulation.

“The real problem is that the Action Agenda lacks basic standards and independent verification. Lots of claims are being made by actors, particularly corporations, on the kind of action they are doing for climate, but they are not being scrutinised from a scientific or social perspective. So agribusinesses are taking advantage of that; they love this space, they can make all sorts of claims,” said Anderson.

Unfortunately, it means the Action Agenda, while having some good initiatives, also offers agribusinesses and other corporations an opportunity to argue that stronger regulation isn’t needed because they are already doing climate work, she pointed out. “But all the work they are supposedly doing is on their terms, to protect their profits and their ability to expand,” Anderson added.

Experts argued that if the climate community hopes to confront agriculture’s outsized role in driving climate change and deforestation, a strong conflict-of-interest policy is essential, along with far greater transparency around the participation of private-sector actors.